INTRODUCTION. 



we should not have attained to the height of that great Colos- 

 sus of the Andes, the Chimborazo, whose height is twice that 

 of Mount Etna ; and we must pile the Righi, or Mount Athos, 

 on the summit of the Chimborazo, in order to form a just 

 estimate of the elevation of the Dhawalagiri, the highest point 



The actual height of the Swiss mountains fluctuates, according to 

 Eschman's observations, as much as 25 English feet, owing to the varying 

 thickness of the stratum of snow that covers the summits. Chimborazo 

 is, according to my trigonometrical measurements, 21,421 feet, (see Hum- 

 boldt, Recueil d'Obs. Astr., tome i., p. 73), and Dhawalagiri 28,074 

 feet. As there is a difference of 445 feet between the determinations of 

 Blake and Webb, the elevation assigned to the Dhawalagiri, (or white 

 mountain from the Sanscrit dhawala, white, and giri, mountain), cannot 

 be received with the same confidence as that of the Jawahir. 25,749 feet 

 since the latter rests on a complete trigonometrical measurement, (see 

 Herbert and Hodgson in the Asiat. Res., vol. xiv., p. 189, and Suppl. to 

 Encycl. Brit., vol. iv., p. 643.) I have shown elsewhere (Ann. des 

 Sciences Naturelles, Mars, 1825,) that the height of the Dhawalagiri 

 (28,074 feet) depends on several elements that have not been ascertained 

 with certainty, as azimuths and latitudes, (Humboldt, Asie Centrale, t. iii.. 

 p. 282). It has been believed, but without foundation, that in the Tar- 

 taric chain, north of Thibet, opposite to the chain of Kouen-lun, there 

 are several snowy summits, whose elevation is about 30,000 English 

 feet, (almost twice that of Mont Blanc,) or, at any rate, 29,000 feet, (see 

 Captain Alexander Gerard's and John Gerard's Journey to the Boorendo 

 Pass, 1840, vol. i., pp. 143 and 311). Chimborazo is spoken of in the 

 text only as one of the highest summits of the chain of the Andes ; for in 

 the year 1827, the learned and highly gifted traveller, Pentland, in his 

 memorable expedition to Upper Peru (Bolivia), measured the elevation of 

 two mountains situated to the east of Lake Titicaca, viz., the Sorata 

 25,200 feet, and the Illimani 24,000 feet, both greatly exceeding the 

 height of Chimborazo, which is only 21,421 feet, and being nearly equal in 

 elevation to the Jawahir, which is the highest mountain in the Himalaya, 

 that has as yet been accurately measured. Thus Mont Blanc is 5,646 

 feet below Chimborazo; Chimborazo 3,779 feet below the Sorata; the 

 Sorata 549 feet below the Jawahir, and probably about 2, 880 feet below 

 the Dhawalagiri. According to a new measurement of the Illimani, by 

 Pentland, in 1838, the elevation of this mountain is given at 23,868 feet, 

 varying only 133 feet from the measurement taken in 1827. The 

 elevations have been given in this note with minute exactness, as erroneous 

 numbers have been introduced into many maps and tables recently pub- 

 lished, owing to incorrect reductions of the measurements. 



[In the preceding note, taken from those appended to the Introduction 

 in the French Translation, rewritten by Humboldt himself, the measure- 

 ments are given in metres, but these have been converted into English feel 

 for the greater convenience of the general reader.] 2V. 



